


sød bærgrød

by CampionSayn



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Treated Seriously, Episode: s03e13 Cassandra's Revenge, Fix-It of Sorts, Moon!Ruddiger, Other, gonna keep bringing up these characters until someone else gets the memo bdi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:01:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25272073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampionSayn/pseuds/CampionSayn
Summary: Let's all be real here: Ruddiger wouldn't have stood by after Cass dragged Varian off and Fidella would be more than happy to help him out.
Relationships: Fidella & Lance Strongbow, Lance Strongbow & Varian, Ruddiger & Fidella, Ruddiger & Varian (Disney)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 34





	sød bærgrød

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZoneRobotnik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoneRobotnik/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Day of the Animals](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25046782) by [ZoneRobotnik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoneRobotnik/pseuds/ZoneRobotnik). 



> Go read the inspiration for the characterizations. They're not exactly the same, but they help and it's just an all-around good read in general.

Ruddiger did not appreciate the princess leaving him alone in the Demanitus Chamber after the (witch-horror-thief-traitor) woman Varian had once had a crush on snatched up the paper he and his boy had been translating and taken Varian with her because he said too much.  
  
Honestly, the raccoon loved his boy, but when he got nervous or over excited, he was still prone to saying and doing things that he regretted almost immediately after.  
  
But that wasn't the point. The point was that Ruddiger was a goddamn _alchemist_ , he could be _useful_ , and Rapunzel took her boyfriend, his best friend, a horse and two little girls and left him behind!  
  
Oh, no, no. That was not going to stand.  
  
Hissing under his breath, the raccoon swiftly scurried about the destroyed chamber, eyes and mind open, thinking about what he could grab for what came next.  
  
Which was to say, he basically tore the place apart.  
  
A bag big enough for supplies, but small enough that he could still heft it around. Ropes lying about here and there that stretched from three feet to ten feet depending on the pieces--some with loops and knots attached for holding pieces of machinery together. A few vials corked that held knockout powder, a formula that expanded into mist when shaken, and that liquid Varian often used to clean the palace floors when he wanted to give the handmaidens an easier workload.  
  
He grabbed the alchemy balls for the good traps and their neutralizer. He grabbed a set of lock picks from his private stash Varian didn't know he'd stolen from the Saporians out of sheer spite. He grabbed a water skin and a couple apples for the journey.  
  
The bag was really heavy, but he couldn't think of anything less worthy than the other to leave behind and just sucked it up.  
  
Then he headed for the stables.  
  
-  
  
It was a mess of saddles and reins tossed about, a few black rocks rising out of the earth and through some of the walls, the horses agitated and looking worried, trying to clean up while also checking for wounded. Their guards had been sent out on patrol of the kingdom proper, but that hardly mattered to Ruddiger as he would never truly trust any guards again that ever worked under the Captain.  
  
_(Maybe that was a lie. Maybe he trusted Stan and Pete a little. They weren't among those host of men that had terrorized Varian when Quirin was newly bound to the Amber; they tried to talk to and comfort his boy, and maybe they were themselves quite kind. But to the raccoon they were still rather stupid and he wouldn't have looked for them in this situation. Kindness and daring were not mutually exclusive to anyone, and he knew Stan, at least, was a bit of a coward.)  
_  
  
It seemed Cassandra had been there and grabbed one of the older guard horses her father was wont to use when Max wasn't around, whose name Ruddiger couldn't recall but knew was called after a bloodline named for tears: Griefhoney? Heartdew? Eau Triste? A fine stallion when he was in a good mood, but always too serious from what Ruddiger saw of him.  
  
But that wasn't his mission and he zeroed in on Fidella looking a mess; mane out of place from her usual braids, no riding attire on her, scuffs on her legs, hooves stomping on the remains of where her door was shattered on the ground where she'd kicked it out and trod across the scraps and splinters.  
  
Ruddiger wasn't stupid and didn't need confirmation of anything. He was in a hurry.  
  
  
Fidella almost knocked herself over when he chittered up at her, though he'd tried to make himself obvious heading her way, bag rattling with its contents.  
  
It took her a moment to breathe and calm down from her quiet raging, the raccoon patient for her benefit, and then she made for him to explain his reason for being in the stables.  
  
To say neither of them were happy in his explanation would be a gross understatement, but she was pleased that he went to her instead of simply running off after Rapunzel, because she was more than inclined to help after Cassandra's theft of more than just that ancient scroll.  
  
Neither of them had bothered suiting her up with bridle and saddle, just a saddle bag across her back for Ruddiger's supplies. Ruddiger holding onto her mane at her insistence, because while she believed he was used to riding Maximus, she also knew that she was a great deal more muscular than him and it would get bumpy.  
  
He trusted her and didn't want to remain longer arguing, so without further adieu, they were off into the night, the alchemist raccoon holding onto the guard horse's mane for dear life once Fidella hit her stride and caught the scents they were looking for.  
  
The lights of the kingdom blurred like shards of glass caught in the air, or snow reflecting the sun and sky when he glanced left or right and his head wasn't ducked down to prevent himself getting anxious and dizzy.  
  
It might have been not so different from riding lightning, Fidella's hooves thundering across cobblestone and wooden bridge and bounding through unpaved forest and glen with the speeds he didn't think even Max could match on his best day.  
  
\--  
  
Because the two of them were more concerned about what might happen than they believed in Cassandra's almost non-existent goodwill, Ruddiger and Fidella made it to the terrifying tower of black rock before any of the others, not even cockerel sounding as the sky was still mostly blue-gray without even the briefest tinges of pink or yellow, though still light enough to see.  
  
They looked about very briefly, marks of the horse Ruddiger couldn't name stomped in the dirt as if he'd taken off like a shot in fear, heeled human tracks heavier than he recalled Cassandra's being, and Fidella pointed him to a set of marks in the dirt that made it apparent Varian had been awake and really didn't want to go into the tower.   
  
Looking up the length of the great black thing, the both of them could see why.  
  
Specifically, they could see that on a thin rail of stone stretching out from the tower was a spiral woven cage; the wind buffeted it and brought down the scent familiar to the guard's horse, but ingrained in absolute terms in Ruddiger.  
  
The two of them split off and around the bottom of the tower, looking for crevice or opening, a door or staircase to move in and up, but found nothing. Just solid black stone, cool to the touch and with a bad smell all of the rocks had about them.  
  
Meeting back at the side facing the dawn, they confirmed and agreed that Cassandra had doubtless made the place impenetrable to entrance without her knowing and it was impossible to destroy the rocks.  
  
  
However, Ruddiger knew that it wouldn't be easy in the first place.  
  
  
Fidella allowed him to climb up and onto her back, observing him as he shifted through the bag they'd brought and considered over the options.  
  
\--  
  
There were many scribbles in the dirt made up of math equations, stick figures, and words, and by onset of the sun spreading its first pale beams of light, they had a plan.  
  
Not an especially _good_ plan, mind, but better than waiting around for when Cassandra woke up and looked out to see them while she awaited Rapunzel.  
  
Ropes positioned along his arms like links in a chain, alchemy balls in hand and the little vials hanging along his neck on their chains and ties, Ruddiger was set.  
  
All Fidella had to do was pick him up and toss him as high as she could.  
  
Back to the tower, Fidella looked down at the raccoon waiting expectantly with a squinted look, giving one last nicker as though to ask, "...Are you really sure about this?"  
  
He didn't even hesitate to chitter back a definitive "Yes."  
  
Sighing, massive shoulders set themselves and Fidella yanked him up by the scruff, gentle but secure, spun in a circle twice to give him the right thrust, then lifted to her hind legs, tossing him directly overhead at the one outcropping of rock out of the tower that would give them a proper chance.  
  
Ruddiger, for his part, kept his eyes closed so he could work through the motions--goo ball slid into a ring of rope, his shoulder hit the blunt end of the rock, and he smashed the configuration into the tower, tiny hands clinging to the end of the cord for dear life.  
  
He did not fall, but only opened his eyes to look down at Fidella nickering up in pleased tones.  
  
The rock didn't move and the goo trap didn't move from it, nor drop the rope in its confines he was hanging from.  
  
Pleased as he was that the calculations were spot on, they were on a bit of a time limit, so he continued up and up, over goo and ropes in a swift process that had him at a window in a modest fifteen minutes.  
  
He made sure to secure the top end, but unwound the rest of the length down to where Fidella stood waiting in case Ruddiger couldn't get Varian out himself and needed a swift exit, or Rapunzel might need it.  
  
\--  
  
The woman was asleep in a self-made throne when Ruddiger crept along the walls to find the exit out onto the dangerous looking bridge and onto the cage holding his boy, shivering in the cold and the faintest smells of blood coming off of him from where Ruddiger stood, contemplating a way to get him out.  
  
She _was_ asleep.  
  
He spooked something awful when the black stones beneath his paws began moving about, claws trying to catch and cage him; he barely managed a high jump into the air back into the throne's room, but when he found her awake and sneering, that spooked him just as much.  
  
"Oh, did Rapunzel send in a spy before trying to come up herself?"  
  
He hissed and spat, fur making him look twice as large, dodging her devices and wasting no time in tossing out the mist vial to give him some cover, even if it wouldn't last in the high room with wind buffeting through now that daylight was upon them.  
  
It still made her angry, though.  
  
Which was the point.  
  
She snarled something under her breath that sounded like an insult to him as well as his boy as he made every effort to get close to the throne or behind her.  
  
He couldn't get Varian out, but he might be able to do something better.  
  
  
  
When he was literally five feet behind her, he tossed the vial full of cleaning fluid that would leave the stones beneath her shining as thought they'd been polished by a hundred handmaidens. And also leave it completely slick to the touch.  
  
  
  
He had one chance, and when she made a mistake in arrogance at finally spotting him, slipping as he planned so she was prone on her back, he pounced.  
  
  
\--  
  
Perhaps he should have felt a little sorry, luring Cassandra down and asking Fidella to take her shot much like he'd taken his, but he didn't.  
  
Honestly, he felt quite vindicated seeing the woman on green grass and dark dirt, a hoof print staining the awful suit she hadn't been able to remove and hadn't bothered on the way down the makeshift braided bridge; her stomach would be sore when she woke up, but that was the least she'd earned after all she had put them through.  
  
Fidella looked slightly guilty even in her valid anger, though, so he scurried up onto her back and patted her shoulder consolingly.  
  
His other hand held the Moonstone and the fur along his arm had turned blue--which was creepy and he didn't like it, but he could deal with it later.  
  
He just thanked the stars that his entire form hadn't turned blue, because as an alchemist, he would be rather drawn to figuring out why, and might have done something he regretted later with the stone. Relegated to just one arm, he had hope that it only affected the barest minimum of his form as a kind of symbiotic reaction. Like a parasite filling with blood from the host, only the infected area of the host changed color at the source.  
  
  
However, as they continued to wait for Rapunzel--wherever the hell she was--he contemplated how to get the stupid glowing thing to lower the tower or bring Varian back into the throne room, or...something. It was still so cold and he couldn't imagine what she might have been doing with him in the hours before they'd found her.  
  
He really didn't want to put it over his heart like Cassandra had; bad enough he had to actually touch the awful thing, he didn't want it anywhere on his person.  
  
Fidella seemed to understand the caution, sniffing at the stone and snorting after like she's inhaled charcoal, her head shaking enough that the rest of her braid came loose and she looked less like a guard horse and more like she belonged out in the open fields.  
  
Suffice it to say, Ruddiger had no idea where that thought came from and cringed a little at himself.  
  
  
Rapunzel's party, specifically Lance, fortunately chose that moment to come crashing out of the treeline and into their midst.  
  
Took him a moment to actually process what he was seeing, but beggars couldn't be choosers.  
  
"What the what? Ruddiger? Fidella? How did you--is that Cassandra?! Wait," he squinted almost comically at Ruddiger's outstretched arm before reeling back, "Is that the Moonstone?!"  
  
  
"Lance, what did you find?" Eugene spoke as he maneuvered around the bush Lance had tripped over into their midst, pausing and following up with the same look as his best friend.  
  
  
Shuffling followed him out of the treeline and both animals moved their unimpressed gazes to find the rest of the party, Max carrying the girls and looking almost scandalized once he looked upon Fidella and found her as unkempt as he'd ever seen her.  
  
' _Scandalized_ ' being a good word for _'achieving maximum lust potential'_ without hopping right over an especially inappropriate line with the princess and two children riding his back.  
  
Fidella saw it, and Ruddiger saw it, but they would mock him endlessly much _later_.  
  
\--  
  
  
When they finally got everything sorted out, Varian still fell out of the tower into Lance's arms, but at least he wasn't overcome with adrenaline and the certainty that he was going to die. He was merely told that it was the least likely way to get him down with Ruddiger barely understanding how to work the stone, and they prepped the hell out of him and Lance and the entire area with more goo traps that would have at least cushioned the fall.  
  
  
They took Cassandra back to Corona, but not immediately to the dungeons--Fidella had broken two of her ribs, so Rapunzel at least got her wish to never see her behind bars and to tried talking to her about their shared problems; she was locked in her old room, but she hadn't amounted as much ill will from the King as she could have.  
  
(Especially since the royals all had a way of playing favorites, Ruddiger would think bitterly as Varian was treated behind a curtain in the same medical ward as the woman who'd betrayed them all--as well as kidnapped and drugged and injured Varian--was treated for her comparatively lesser injuries.  
  
He tried to be grateful that at least Lance and the girls stuck around while Varian and Ruddiger awaited Quirin to come in from Old Corona; the nurses sterilizing the open cuts along the dark bruises he's amassed from Cassandra's anger.)  
  
Ruddiger had noticed that the stone came with some annoying creature that might have either belonged to it as a defense mechanism, or literally caused this whole mess to begin with.  
  
When he'd asked Fidella and Max if they could see some not-young not-old being of blue color floating around them or standing in front of them, and they looked at him as though he'd lost his mind, he made it top priority to write it down for the princess and her kept court to consider on.  
  
  
The annoying being wasn't pleased when she found him writing out the problem with her and the stone in perfect English and Rapunzel speaking with Cassandra about her (it). She started screaming about his ruining everything and calling him a great multitude of names in human language as well as some guttural snarls that had her entire face splitting open to show a mass of teeth, hands elongating to claws and a sort of blackness engulfing her when it became clear that he wasn't afraid of her.  
  
  
He made sure to make that perfectly clear when he illustrated her changing form and sent it off with Fidella while Varian was being treated for a head injury nobody had noticed until he started vomiting during the night, pupils blown and Lance freaking out on his behalf as Quirin still hadn't made it to the castle by night's fall.  
  
\--  
  
When Rapunzel spoke the works that Varian had discovered hidden inside the deepest reaches of the scroll _(humans were really so fascinating in their cleverness sometimes, Ruddiger had squeaked and chirred from Fidella's back like a kitten; he would remember her soft eye roll and her smile for weeks to come)_ they were all both entirely relieved and worried when they found the source of her power, the Sundrop, perched next to her heart.  
  
The wretch that had been following around Ruddiger had changed form entirely at that, finally visible to everyone else, thankfully, but Varian had been out of bed and using Lance as a crutch when it happened--so it hadn't taken more than two pillow cases and Rapunzel's air ties to keep the two stones from being snatched away by the hissing--but still mostly harmless--beast.  
  
Varian had noted out loud that Lance was exceptionally good with his hands after he'd been instructed to bind up Ruddiger's paw and wrapped the transferred the Sundrop to Rapunzel's own hand in much the same way; the alchemist hadn't even hesitated in asking, "Want to put those skills to good use?"  
  
Lance had blinked and looked at Varian as if he were dreaming or Lance was hallucinating, "Uh."  
  
Both of them had then been hauled off by Fidella on Ruddiger's instruction, reading his boy's mind, as one does, and gone about doing what needed to be done.  
  
  
This seemed to confuse the others, until about two days later when the four of them returned, Fidella hauling a crate on a cart that was bigger than herself.  
  
(Not a hard feat, she'd promised, as she'd already hauled Rapunzel's caravan once by herself with everyone on it while being chased by someone on a rhino trying to kill them. A box full of metal wasn't a big deal for her. But it was sweet of Ruddiger to worry anyway, she'd grinned; and had they both been a human, he might well have been awkward in his feelings after that.)  
  
\--  
  
"Ladies and Gentlemen--"  
  
"And Animals."  
  
"Yes, and Animals--We give you..."  
  
There was a tug on wood and the opening to the front of the crate opened wide to showcase the polished metals of what they ad been working on, day and night.  
  
Both Lance and Varian finished with a flourish, "The Rooster~"  
  
In this go-around, in this time, the great machine was not to be used for warning the kingdom of Cassandra's approach and would not blow up in the face of four people standing on the roof (Quirin had sat Lance down for a long, _**long** _talk before prep work had even begun on the thing and, suffice it to say, had put the fear of God into the younger man with a smile on his face and an offer of a pair of leather gloves in Lance's own size) but would be used to get rid of the burdensome stones. And Zhan Tiri, if all went well.  
  
The tiny hiccup that came with it was someone being made to take the Moonstone and call the black rocks back into the earth before both stones were to be placed, simultaneously, into the machine and launched into the atmosphere.  
  
And King Frederic had gotten most of his memories back and was being an obnoxious dick, so Varian had to enlist help from the knights and king of the Dark Kingdom to, "Please, for the love of all humanity, convince him to unclench. There's an eclipse coming in a week, and after that, it'll be too late. We'll be stuck with this magic bullshit forever!"  
  
"Well, not _forever_ ," Lance soothed, scritching Ruddiger's ears and feeding Fidella an apple as Varian paced around the lab he'd been given at the castle, considering plots and lines on blueprints that looked an awful lot like a door to somewhere else that would be as dangerous as the House of Yesterday's Tomorrow, "But we don't want to kick the can down to our descendants a hundred years from now; so getting the king to see reason would be great."  
  
\--  
  
The first day, talking did not work.  
  
The second day, raised voices and Rapunzel stepping in with Arianna did not work.  
  
The third day, the Captain literally requested for the king to see reason, and it did not work--and had the added bonus of Ruddiger almost feeling bad for the human when Fidella informed him about the event later in the evening.  
  
The fourth day, Ruddiger had enough and just pinned the man to a wall with some very large black rocks, rolling his eyes at Max and basically writing out in the dirt, "Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission."  
  
Thankfully, the humans read the room and dragged Cassandra out of her room with the promise of a pardon in exchange for her help.  
  
She readily agreed to it, after some consideration on the demon still hissing and spitting and trying to manipulate even with nothing left in her arsenal but pittance compared to what had already been revealed and Cassandra using her brain for once.  
  
_(No, Ruddiger promised Fidella, when everything was done and dusted and he was relieved of the stone and drowsing on her back as he was wont to do; he would not cut out his low opinion of the woman. Not until she earned it.)_  
  
The guard's horse and the raccoon stood watch and alert once everything was in place and the stones were in the machine. Great green swirls of smoke spouting and flailing from the confines of the metal setting them on edge--but neither ran nor moved when the stones joined together in a shining silver burst of pure light, the energy forming powerful enough to open that door Varian had been working on to send Zhan Tiri away and closing once she was sucked down through the void still screaming and desperate and muted entirely when the alchemist and his assistant thief pulled the lever to close it.  
  
When the 'click' of the lever sounded, it was lost in the booming release of the Sundrop-Moonstone being blown up, up, up into the sky.  
  
There was a streak of blue-yellow, like a shooting star to wish on, and then it was gone.  
  
\--  
  
"Wow, this looks a lot better than the last time we were here."  
  
Squinting at the shoots of green and new blooms of most every color, Fidella made her agreement aloud, following after Lance as he strayed behind Varian's family, keeping an eye on the young man himself as he kept pausing his steps to take samples of flora and minerals he'd rarely, if ever, seen in Corona. It was rather adorable, really.  
  
There had been a request from Edmund about assistance in rebuilding the Dark Kingdom, and though Varian had been offered the title of Royal Engineer and Lance had been offered a place as head chef in the palace kitchens, both of them were inclined towards getting to know a place they had never been with people they wanted to get to know.   
  
Rapunzel understood this, in her way, even if she was sad to see them gone for the year that had been allotted them. Especially as Fidella made her case with Max to go with them; not inclined to stay where Cassandra was trying to decide what to really do with her life and still not having apologized to anyone other than Rapunzel for her actions.  
  
Ruddiger had invited her, and both of them were of the same mind to go where they were needed.  
  
  
  
As Lance continued to keep his pace slow to grin over at Varian and the alchemist continued his collecting, Ruddiger took the opportunity to snatch some apples he'd stowed away in the cart and climb along Fidella's back; she was glad to take the bright winesap apple from him, enjoying the juice and crunch as he settled across her shoulders like a scarf. Chewing his own cameo apple as he carefully untied and combed out the regulation braids in her mane she'd been carrying around for what felt like far too long.

**Author's Note:**

> In the intertest of explanation, I can only say I started this because I'm a little stuck on the third chapter of my Lance soulmate fic and... I am so fucking bored reading fics centered on New Dream, or Cassunzel, or Varian having a shit time. 
> 
> For real, tell me I shouldn't be bored. There are plenty of other characters to play with and build on or up and other things to do but all I see on the horizon is the sea of fics focusing on just these four characters. Where are my little canoes and submarines and rafts cobbled together out of driftwood and vines??


End file.
